


Almost Thirty Years

by helsinkibaby



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-03
Updated: 2008-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:48:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26413681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: For almost thirty years, their relationship has followed the same pattern.
Relationships: Sarah Jane Smith/Harry Sullivan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Almost Thirty Years

**Author's Note:**

> For the 15_minute_fic word 53. _The word was **wait**_  
> 

For almost thirty years, ever since he drove from UNIT HQ to Aberdeen on a dark and rainy night, their relationship has followed the same pattern. They meet for dinner every couple of weeks, UNIT assignments and breaking news permitting. They talk about their time with the Doctor, talk about what they’re doing now, and they assiduously avoid any mention of feelings.

Occasionally, they end the evening at his place, or hers, and the next morning one of them sneaks out while the other pretends to sleep.

It may not be much of a relationship, but Harry has long since come to accept that it’s the most he will ever have with Sarah Jane, and he’s learned to accept that fact.

Until the day that she knocks on his door completely unannounced and there’s a different light in her eyes.

He hasn’t heard from her in almost a month now, unusual in itself, and he asks her about the last story she was working on, the sudden and unexpected leap in results in a London school, and did she ever get to the bottom of it.

“Yes I did,” she says, sounding suddenly breathless. “With a little bit of help.”

It takes a long moment for her meaning to sink in, and when it does, Harry’s heart sinks with it. “The Doctor,” he says, trying to keep his hurt out of his voice, because hadn’t he always known that this day would come? The day when the Doctor would come back into her life, into her heart (not that he’d ever left), leaving Harry alone again? “How is he?”

“Regenerated. Young.” Her voice rises on a little laugh. “Still the same. He’s got a new companion now, Rose… nice girl… awfully young though.” She looks at him then, and perhaps she sees something of his feelings in his eyes, because she stops, shrugs her shoulders. “But then, we were all young once.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “Perhaps you were, old girl,” he tells her, holding back a smirk at the narrowing of her eyes, the age-old response to that particular moniker. “I, however, was born middle-aged.” Which, of course, had always been a little of their problem. Shaking himself from that train of thought, he asks, “So… are you off on another jaunt around the galaxy? Should I water your plants?”

Sarah shakes her head with another of those little laughs. “That won’t be necessary,” she says, and she’s strangely breathless again, and he can’t think why. “He offered… said I could come along with him and Rose… but… I realised I’d done that… it’s time I got on with my life.” She stops talking then, and suddenly she looks nothing short of terrified. “In fact… I think I have been getting on with my life, and not quite realising it, for years… and I think… I think that I’d like to keep going on with my life. With you.”

It’s so unexpected a speech that Harry is momentarily speechless.

Perhaps a little more than momentarily, because it’s long enough that Sarah, wringing her hands, says, “Say something!”

“Ah… yes… well…” Harry clears his throat, reminds himself sternly that he’s not some bumbling teenager, rather is a Commodore in UNIT and resolves to act like it. “I think I’d rather like that actually.”

“You would?” Sarah’s smile is like sunshine, the kind that he remembers from years gone by, the kind he hasn’t seen in almost thirty years, but he doesn’t see it for long, because his arms are around her and his lips are covering hers and he has a feeling he’ll have plenty of opportunities in the future to see that smile.

He’ll make damn sure of it.

It’s taken almost thirty years to get here, but it was worth the wait.


End file.
